McAllum, Kirstie

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Research expertise

My research interests focus on deepening our understanding of how organisational members who do not interact regularly construct the meaning of their work, often in different ways. I am particularly interested in the experiences and organisational and occupational identities of persons who occupy hybrid public-private spaces, such as volunteers or workers who are employed and managed by an organisation yet work with aged persons in home-based care environments. I aim to show how the multiple meanings given to work and organisational experiences more generally can be mobilised as a resource for individuals who occupy a peripheral organisational position.

I also investigate how communicative processes, which create particular types of collective behaviour, can facilitate and constrain organisational participation. In particular, my research examines how discourses about professionalism combine with organisational control and coordination mechanisms to structure relationality in particular ways, often with the aim of increasing collaboration, and frequently minimising or suppressing dissent. To do so, I analyse how organisational members construct communities of practice by negotiating what ways of knowing and doing should be used to resolve organisational problems and what constitutes appropriate forms of interaction.